By Hildegarde Goss

By Heather June

From the moment Rebecca Blackwell entered the fourth grade classroom, Maggie felt it, just under her ribs. It stretched between them like a ribbon, tying them together. The class stared at Rebecca, small and thin, with the whitest hair imaginable. Long hair. With Mrs. Resnick’s arm around her fragile shoulders, Rebecca shivered, looking at her black leather shoes.

By Kip Robinson Greenthal

Kaly came to Palo Alto when she was four years old with her mother and father from New York City. She remembers the house, painted in pure white, where she lived, and how it stood in the middle of a wide emerald lawn bordered by apple orchards, grape vines and roses. Such a change from the brick and brownstone of New York and the Hudson River.

By Ken Jenks

Korba had a smart frock on, on the very day that her husband caught a troll. That fact would have no relationship to the other until you understand that Korba was wearing a frock that had been given to her, not by her husband as one might have hoped, but by a pharmacist whose motives in the affair were just that, to motivate an affair!

By Amanda Brooks Eldridge

Can’t you see my broken heart? It’s torpid. It’s slowly beating. It’s still bleeding. Maybe you can see her, though. She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Maybe I should render for you the quickly passing, tempered and fluctuous hot story we had together…or maybe we should just look again.